He scrabbled at the iron-hard knuckles that held him, and the green murk of the forest was suddenly tinged pink as the beast brought more of its weight down on him. His hands slipped from the knuckles then down to his belt. Nothing there but empty scabbards, and a ladle. And a small, wooden box.
The beast snarled in triumph and lifted the blade of its axe. Porter, suffocating beneath its weight, clicked open the brass clasp of the spice box and hurled it upwards.
A cloud of pepper burst from it as it hit the beast’s snout. It paused, grimaced and made the mistake of breathing in. Then it sneezed, the explosion of mucus spattering down into Porter’s face, and blinked. Tears soaked into the fur around its muzzle, and its nose wrinkled up some more, but it had recovered from the surprise and lined up another blow.
There was a chunk of steel biting into flesh.
The beast leapt forwards, shrieking with pain, and Porter felt the glorious, delicious rush of air into his lungs. He scrambled to his feet as the beast galloped away, blood splattering from the long, bone-deep wound in its hindquarters. It paused only to snatch up the body of one of its victims before barrelling away through the undergrowth, apparently impervious to the vicious barbs of the thorns.
Brandt, his greatsword black with blood, grinned down at his comrade.
“It’s run off,” he said.
“Never mind,” Porter said, unbuttoning his shirt and examining the bruising on his chest. “I don’t think even the lads would have eaten that without complaint.”
“Not without plenty of pepper, anyway,” Brandt agreed and Porter, despite the agony from his bruised ribs, laughed.
They made their way cautiously back to the path upon which the company still remained. By now the attack seemed to be over. Here and there bodies lay amongst the undergrowth, dark and broken in the gloom. Men wailed as they were tended by their comrades. Other voices were jagged with hysterical laughter, the men still half-crazed with the rush of combat.
“Looks like we’ve won,” Porter said, stepping over a corpse to inspect the dent in the huge brass kettle that lay amongst the remains of the company’s rations.
The same thought occurred to Erikson. He was still breathless from the attack, and his sword was chipped and bloodied from the six-limbed monstrosity that had hit his part of the column. It lay across the track, its fur matted with blood and its body a butcher’s block of stab wounds and hacked flesh.
“I don’t think they knew we were here,” Sergeant Alter said. His sleeve had been cut away and, as he spoke, Dolf was sewing closed the gash that ran down his biceps. The beast had caught him with the edge of its crude spear.
“You could be right,” Erikson agreed. “They could have been hunting deer. Even so, I want to get a move on.”
“It’ll be difficult without the guides,” Alter said, and for the first time Erikson realised what had been bothering him about the fight. The riflemen had vanished, slipping away so quietly that he hadn’t even noticed their disappearance in the face of the charge.
“What a bunch of cowards,” Dolf said, grimacing as he bit off the thread and knotted the last inch of Alter’s wound. “Will they be hanged for desertion?”
“That’s the way it would have been in the regiments, lad,” Alter said and inspected the youngster’s handiwork. “Not bad stitching, that.”
Dolf beamed with pride as he turned to find more of the wounded to practise his skills upon.
“That lad’s the best bloody drummer I’ve ever seen,” Alter said with an avuncular air.
Erikson just grunted. Now that he had noticed that their guides were gone, he was starting to notice other things too. Things such as the way that the beams of light that pierced the canopy were slanting to the east as afternoon wore on to evening. And the smell of blood. The humid breeze was slow but steady, and there was no telling to which hungry nostrils it would carry the scent.
Most of all, Erikson noticed that they were lost in the tangled heart of the forest. Even if they turned back now, and even if they could follow their trail back towards where they had come from, night would catch them before they could escape.
“Shall I give the order to start back, captain?” Alter asked. Before Erikson could answer a voice rang out.
“I should say not,” it said cheerfully and Freimann emerged from between the trees.
“Where the bloody hell have you been?” Erikson barked at him.
Freimann’s grin stayed on his face, but his eyes hardened.
“Making sure none of them escaped,” he said.
“How very heroic of you, sir,” Alter said sarcastically, and this time the smile did fade from Freimann’s face.
“Yes,” he said. Then he unslung the satchel which he wore around his shoulder and upended it. The contents clicked together as they tumbled to the forest floor, the gloom making them seem as green as everything else in the forest.
“We always take the tip of the left horn,” he explained, his tone still chill. “For the bounty. But perhaps you would like to check that these are fresh?”
So saying he reached down and lifted one of the hacked-off horns towards Alter. Flies were already gorging themselves on the dark gore which smeared the bone.
“Not at all, sir,” Alter told him as he took a step back. “Wouldn’t dream of doubting the word of an officer.”
“That’s settled then,” Erikson said. “Now I suggest we put the wounded on the horses and carry on to that water you promised us.”
Freimann shook his head.
“No, the wounded are no good to us. The enemy will be able to smell their blood for miles around, and we need stealth. I’ll second two of my men to lead them back to the town. They’ll be there by morning.”
Erikson caught Alter turning to hide the neatly stitched gash on his arm, and winked. A drop of blood wasn’t going to do them any harm, and over the last few weeks he had come to rely on the old soldier.
“Very well, then,” he said. “Let’s see who we have left.”
Only a few score of the company remained unscathed. Although they had only suffered three fatalities, many more had been wounded in the ferocity of the beasts’ onslaught. Gunter was one of the worst off. He had received a deep claw-wound across his already unlovely features, as well as a snapped arm and three shattered ribs.
“How are you doing?” Erikson asked him as he watched one of Gunter’s company strapping the man’s arm to his torso.
“Blessed by Sigmar,” Gunter told him without the slightest trace of irony. Porter, who was counting the cost to his food stores, sniggered behind him. Everybody pretended not to notice.
“I see what you mean,” Erikson said, and as so often was the case when dealing with the faithful, felt himself at a complete loss.
“My injuries will heal, and during that time I will learn the lessons from this combat,” Gunter explained patiently. “Attack from below seems to be the best way to deal with these beasts. Take them in the belly.”
“I had a wench like that once,” said Porter.
“Have you assigned a man to carry that kettle yet?” Erikson snapped, and Porter was suddenly no longer there. Turning back to Gunter he said, “I’m going to have to send all the wounded back. You will be in command of the column. That is, if you think you are strong enough?”
“With Sigmar’s help,” Gunter told him, “we are all strong enough.”
“Good,” Erikson said. “You can take my horse. Just try not to get in any trouble on the way. I want you fit. Freimann has been kind enough to send two of his men back with you. They’ll have you back in no time.”
Freimann nodded. He had been strolling through the company, an expression of vague satisfaction on his face as he studied the blood-soaked bandages and crudely bound limbs.
“They’ll see you clear,” he said. “Now, Captain Erikson. If you are ready, we should make haste.”
“Good luck,” he said to Gunter, then turned away, and Sergeant Alter bellowed the order to mar
ch.
Within minutes the unscathed members of the company had left their wounded comrades behind them, swallowed up by the gloom of the forest.
Even though the track had widened and they now travelled mostly downhill, they found the going hard. The day’s march combined with the exhaustion of battle had put lead in their feet, and it was with a feeling of genuine relief that they eventually arrived at a river.
It cut cleanly through the murk of the forest. The light that sparkled on the clear waters was almost blinding in its brightness, and the mayflies that flitted through the rainbows of mist shone like jewels.
“Have you really never been here before?” Erikson asked Freimann as he watched his men splash forwards to quench their thirst and wash the slime of sweat and crushed bugs from their faces.
“Not here,” Freimann said. “But me and my regiment have made the forest our own. We can follow its tracks almost as well as the enemy, and if we don’t have their senses we have the intelligence to make up for it.”
“Your tactics seem to work,” Erikson allowed. “But how can you match their ability to smell?”
“We don’t match it,” Freimann said. “We use it. The smell of blood, especially. It carries for miles, and when they smell it, it does something to them. It shuts down their thinking and blinds them to everything else so that they must follow it. It’s like a drug to them.”
“It seems to make them damned powerful, though,” Erikson said. Freimann just shrugged.
“They can be as powerful as they want, as long as they go where we lead them. Attack where we want them to attack.”
He turned and gave Erikson a long, cool look.
“Our injured…” Erikson began, then felt his mouth go dry. He had been seized with a sudden, nauseating suspicion. “They will be all right, won’t they? Your men will lead them to safety?”
Freimann turned away and looked down the river.
“If we have time, we will set some snares before we leave this place,” he said. “Your villain of a cook can make us some stew.”
“But the injured,” Erikson persisted. “Your men are going to lead them to safety. Aren’t they?”
“One of my earliest memories is of a snare I set one winter,” Freimann continued as if he hadn’t heard the question. “I must have been about five or six. Something like that. I’d set the snare in a hare run, but I caught a fox instead. It was a skinny thing, all fur and ferocity, but it was ablaze with life,” Freimann said with admiration as he gazed sightlessly into the trees on the other side of the river. “When I approached, it snarled and snapped. Then, as I watched, it began to gnaw at its own paw. It seemed to take an age to chew through the joint, but eventually it did.”
He trailed off, lost in the memory. Erikson listened to his men laughing and complaining and arguing as they refreshed themselves in the sunlit waters.
“The blood on the snow was the brightest red I’ve ever seen,” Freimann said at length. “I let it go, limping away on three legs. It must have died soon after, but right then it deserved to live because it understood life. It understood that life is cruel and cold and merciless, and the only way to survive is to be even crueller and colder. Even more merciless.”
“But my men,” Erikson said, trying to drag Freimann back to the point. “They are all bleeding. If the beasts can smell as well as you say they can… I have a responsibility.”
Freimann blinked as if awakening from a dream. When he spoke next it was with his usual carefree insouciance.
“Oh, don’t worry about them,” he said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m sure they will be fine.”
This time Erikson saw past Freimann’s easy charm to something that lay behind it. Something that looked a little like blood on the snow. He suppressed a shiver.
“We have to finish this job and get back,” he decided.
“That’s what we’re here for,” Freimann said. “Let’s fill our canteens and get going. I want to find a hilltop to camp on tonight. And I’m suddenly hungry.”
They made the rest of the day’s journey in silence.
Chapter Eleven
Gunter’s column of wounded men had covered barely five miles when dusk caught up with them. The forest gloom had deepened into an endless shadow that lay beneath the trees, a darkness that seemed almost a physical thing.
“Rifleman,” Gunter called out to the guide in front of them. “What is your name?”
“Franz,” the rifleman said without turning.
“It is time to call a halt for the night, Franz. The men are weak, and they need rest and to tend to their wounds.”
“We’re not stopping.” Franz, who had been leading the column, let his horse amble on even as he turned in the saddle. “The horses can find their footing in the darkness, and it is dangerous to lose mobility.”
“Most of the men don’t have horses,” Gunter told him. Speaking had reopened the claw-mark that sliced down his face, and blood started to flow again. He ignored it just as he ignored the constant pain from his broken arm and shattered ribs.
“That is their misfortune,” Franz said with a shrug. “In the forest, the weak must fend for themselves.”
“But in the eyes of Sigmar,” Gunter said, “all men are brothers in battle. And look, right here is where yonder stream has made a clearing. We will stop here for the night and continue in the morning.”
For a moment it seemed that the rifleman was going to argue, but all he did was shrug again.
“As you wish,” he said. Without a backwards glance he dismounted, and led his horse to the trickle of water to drink.
Slowly, limping on their own two feet or clinging to one of the few horses, the rest of Gunter’s shattered command entered the clearing. It was little more than a narrow strip of land that some flash-flood had cleared of undergrowth. A narrow strip of sky ran like a ribbon above the stream, and the men looked up at it with the same hopeless yearning with which they had looked out of the bars of the gaol. Already they had learned to hate the forest.
Gunter, his stern features as composed as always beneath the dark creases of his wounds and the bright tears of fresh blood they wept, moved amongst the men. For the first time he learned that two of them had not made it even this far, and had been left on the trail behind them.
They spent the last dying hour of daylight building up a store of firewood, and as the darkness between the trees grew complete, the men lit the first of their watch fires.
The riflemen were unhappy.
“That is not wise,” Franz told Gunter, who was now sitting patiently whilst one of his colleagues rebound his bandages. “You must tell your men to extinguish the fires. The smell of woodsmoke will carry even further than the sight of the flames.”
“The men are cold and exhausted,” Gunter argued. “And many of them need all the comfort and the warmth they can get. Anyway, with the light behind us we can fight whatever comes from the forest.”
“If you fight the things that this fire will bring,” the riflemen said, “you will be slaughtered.”
The man who was retying Gunter’s bandage let the knot slip through his fingers, and the fractured bone flared with a brittle agony.
“Then so be it,” Gunter snarled, his composure slipping in the moment of pain. “We are Sigmar’s sons, and if that is our destiny then so be it.”
Franz opened his mouth to reply, but his companion tapped his arm and shook his head.
“Then I can’t persuade you to extinguish those fires?” Franz asked.
“No,” Gunter replied, and swallowed his pain as the bandage was tied again.
When he awoke, Gunter had no idea what time it was. The fire had burned low, and even as he stumbled to his feet he muttered a prayer of contrition for having allowed himself to lapse into unconsciousness before posting a watch.
Still muttering, he went to the fire and fed it with dried brushwood that they had found on the banks of the stream. Soon it was crackling ha
ppily away. Gunter finished his prayer and looked around the camp. The flames lit the trees that loomed over them, as hard and unforgiving as the bones of some vast skeleton, and revealed the bats and moths that flitted between them.
The men all seemed to be sleeping, bundled in their bloodied and tattered clothes like so many rag dolls. Gunter stalked amongst them. Occasionally he would stoop to shake a man out of a nightmare or to examine the dressing of a wound, but for the most part he let them sleep.
It wasn’t until he went to check on the horses that he realised that their two guides had gone. The deserters had taken their mounts and their bedrolls with them and vanished as silently as mist before the dawn.
Gunter ground his teeth in anger at their treachery. Taking comfort from the fact that rage is one of Sigmar’s greatest gifts, he returned to the fire to nurse it. He checked his weapons, and gazed into the flames. They danced hypnotically and he caught himself falling back to sleep.
He jerked awake, and suddenly saw the hungry glitter of eyes in the darkness amongst the trees.
“Who’s there?” he growled, rising to his feet and stepping towards them. The eyes vanished before he had taken half a dozen steps, blinking out as suddenly as they had appeared. But now that he was peering into the darkness Gunter could see that his sleeping company was being appraised by a whole constellation of glittering eyes. They glowed in the reflected firelight as they studied Gunter’s sleeping men.
Gunter regarded the men too. They were broken, bled out, exhausted. Of those who could still hold a weapon, there were few who would have the strength to wield it, especially against such beasts as they had fought today.
As if summoned by the thought, the stealthy calm of the forest was torn asunder by a sudden rush of crashing undergrowth and pounding hooves, and with a final crash of falling timber the ancient depths of the forest gave birth to a nightmare.
Broken Honour Page 18
